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Order the right drink on a first date or you could die alone

This woman is drinking a beer on a date. Statistically, she is not desirable.
Courtesy photo

First dates are fraught with myriad speed bumps that could thwart a sequel to dinner and a movie. You can talk about yourself too much or bring up religion or even, god forbid, order the wrong drink.

According to a new nationwide study by Wist, an app that provides personalized food and drink recommendations, each sex has certain expectations about the other when ordering drinks. These are real numbers, so play the odds correctly.

The “dream woman” drinks wine according to 35 percent of fellas out there, while another 26 percent think that their date will drink a specialty cocktail like a mojito or margarita. From there, only 18 percent of guys see their date drinking a beer; 15 percent are down with a well drink like rum and Coke. Only 1 percent of guys think their dream woman does shots, but that’s because all of those guys listen to Toby Keith exclusively.

Only 1 percent of guys think their dream woman does shots, but that’s because all of those guys listen to Toby Keith exclusively.

As for the ladies, their “dream man” drinks a well drink like a gin and tonic 33 percent of the time and a beer 30 percent. It drops off after that to wine at just 19 percent and specialty cocktails at 12 percent. An impressive 4 percent of women are cool with their date knocking back shots.

Those numbers kind of back up the expected stereotypes about both sexes (real men drink beer! real women know things about wine!), but the survey of 1,000 Americans also looks at where the first date should take place and how the money should be split. Here, there men and women differ in their approach.

The ideal first-date location for 43 percent of dudes involves a fun and casual restaurant; 34 percent go for a fancy and expensive dinner, because those guys are suckers for overselling it. Only 22 percent were down with a home-cooked meal and staying in.

This is where things start to split. For women, 38 percent would prefer that home-cooked meal to 32 percent going out to that fun and casual restaurant that definitely isn’t Chili’s. Only 23 percent are up for going to a fancy restaurant with all those forks.

And when it comes time to pay, there’s also a chasm between the sexes on just how that ought to go down. About 57 percent of men think they should pay for the date, while only 36 percent of women agree. Ladies are just as much about allowing the person who initiated the date to pay (29 percent) or splitting it straight up (31 percent), while only 18 percent of guys think going Dutch is acceptable.

All of this proves, once again, that with all of the differences in expectations between men and women, it’s a freaking miracle that anyone ever makes it to a second date.